People Power Taps GreenPeak for New Smart-Home Products
People Power, a software company that offers cloud-based mobile services, has launched Presence Security, which consists of modular and interoperable smart-home products, using technology from chipmaker GreenPeak. Both companies say they are focused on developing solutions targeting various use cases, including helping seniors live independently, saving energy and home security.
The Presence Security platform uses wireless sensors to notify residents when something happens at home while they are away. Presence Pro Energy tracks energy usage over time and can transmit energy-related alerts to users’ mobile devices. Presence Pro Care, which People Power plans to introduce mid-year, will help caregivers take care of aging and sick family members by monitoring daily living patterns and sending alerts when unexpected events occur. Feeds from Internet-connected video cameras can be integrated into Presence Pro Care.
GreenPeak chips are compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and are used in a number of ZigBee-compliant smart-home devices. People Power says it selected GreenPeak’s radio chips due to their performance record, long range, resistance to Wi-Fi interference, reliability and low cost.
Partnership Gives McLeod Customers Access to Tracking Services
FourKites, which makes software designed to provide supply chain visibility by tracking trucking loads, has partnered with McLeod Software, a provider of transportation-management software, to integrate their two products. FourKites’ tracking technology is now available to companies using McLeod Software’s enterprise-wide, end-to-end brokerage-management software, known as PowerBroker. This will give McLeod’s customers access to FourKites’ electronic logging device (ELD) Control Center software.
As part of the 2012 U.S. Congress’ “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century” Act, trucking companies will be required to use ELDs in their fleets by the end of next year. ELDs are used to create electronic records of those companies’ compliance with hours of service (HOS) requirements. FourKites has also recently launched a location-tracking service that uses cellular towers to triangulate a truck’s location based on the driver’s cell phone. The service generates a location update each hour, at a cost of $1 per load.
Argus Insights Report Shows Apps Lagging Behind Wearable Products
After analyzing more than 136,000 online consumer reviews of wearable technology products, written between November 2015 and February 2016, Argus Insights has rated consumer delight for hardware higher than for the apps running on those products. For example, it found that consumers were very pleased with wearable devices made by Garmin, though they gave Garmin’s apps the poorest ratings, compared with all other reviewed products. The same trend was seen in products from Samsung, Lumo and Microsoft. Jawbone bucked the trend: consumer delight rated higher for Jawbone apps than for Jawbone hardware, such as the Up band.
With regard to specific functions, consumers tended to show high frustration with synching data between their wearable devices and online profile, followed by the tendency of some devices to crash and require a reboot. Overall, fitness tracking, calorie counting and heart rate monitoring rated among the most loved features.
Argus Insights describes the key takeaway from the report thusly: “As wearable technology continues to improve with better components and design, devices are becoming more standardized. There is a clear need for improvement of the applications used to interpret all the data these devices collect.” The full report can be downloaded here.
Dash Buttons Number 100 at One-Year Milestone
Amazon‘s Dash Button—a button-sized device that contains a Wi-Fi transmitter, enabling consumers to reorder household items via their Amazon accounts by pressing the button and sending the order through their home network—has reached a new milestone. The retailer says that in response to growing demand and use of the buttons during the past three months, it has added more than 75 new product buttons to the lineup. The new buttons represent products by a number of major consumer packaged goods companies, including Coca-Cola and Clorox, and they join brands in the original lineup, which include products from PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Dow Chemical Co. One can even order a box of Trojan condoms with a press of a button.
Dash Buttons are only available to members of Amazon’s Prime program, and each button costs $4.99—but consumers earn that fee back the first time they use the button, via a credit. They also need to log into their account online or via a smartphone app and confirm the order after pushing the button.